Harvard Business Publishing

How about we just lend (spend?) $500 M to prop up failing companies and industries?

(Kidding, obviously)...

Why are there so few responses? Are we non-plussed by the proposals? Are we bored by the ideas? Do the abundance of tactics make it harder to identify the strategies behind the proposals (assuming there are strategies)? Do we just not care?

Umair,
I'm not sure there is enough difference between all of the proposals to vote for one over the others. They're all some variant of the following:
1. Safety net spending - increase unemployment and health insurance benefits for the unemployed
2. Shovel-ready infrastructure - fund those projects at the state and local level that are ready-to-go but for funding (although I do agree with some of the comments regarding putting some sort of ROI filter on these projects if possible)
3. "Pink spending" - invest in education at the early childhood and college level
4. Tax Rebates - in the form of a payroll tax or lower-income rebate
So, what I will vote for are those concepts that I think need to be included in a reform package.
First, it's clear that we have underfunded physical infrastructure for a number of years and that additional investment can generate long-term ROI for our country. I believe that there are a number of projects that can be started quickly to have a multiplier spending effect on our economy. We need to have a framework for determining and sorting by ROI, which I am not sure we have today.
Second, while I believe that education is another area that requires investment, I'm not sure just increasing the spend in this category is adequate. It's clear that our educational system needs reform from top to bottom. I don't have any data to support this, but I believe that our spending dollars are generating less and less return in this area -- a characteristic common to structures that are becoming more bureaucratic. I would provide matching funds to institutions for programs that improve their efficiency in terms of number of people educated and the quality of that education. Yes, I believe that both of those goals can be achieved simultaneously.
Third, Tyler Cowen's comment regarding modernizing bottleneck airports seems to be one of the most innovative ideas that I think could have a big positive impact on our economy. I believe that air travel, with the help of recent TSA and Homeland reforms has become a significant friction on the pace of doing business. Finding ways to lower the non-value additive frictions of traveling around our country could have an accelerating effect on our economy. Further, I think there are a number of investments that would help accelerate valuable activities for our populous and our economy. Strategic investment in broadband capacity and making it a commodity available under something similar to a utility model will spur additional economic activity.
Fourth, I agree that we need to stabilize some state and local programs that will be whipsawed by the sudden decrease in tax revenue yet may be restored in better times. The challenge here is to identify those programs. But to the extent we can bridge or at least lessen the tax revenue decline to allow for more orderly rationalization at the local government level, I think it will save our economy significant value that is otherwise wasted. However, I think we also need to look at the efficiency that government provides services and invest in restructuring efforts that takes advantage of modern technologies to allow government to serve more people with fewer resources.
Fifth, it's clear that the oil and gas industry has little motivation to invest in making clean energy widely available to the point where it is a viable alternative. We should think about innovative programs that either provide that incentive or establish the infrastructure for the alternative so that they have no choice but to jump ship to the alternative.
Sixth, I believe that a lack of good jobs is our biggest challenge to creating a good economy. Good jobs creates better consumers. Better consumers creates growing businesses. Growing businesses create need for credit. Therefore, I would create a program that incentivizes the hiring of recently unemployed professionals into areas that require development. In other words, provide tax credits to both the employee and employer in situations where former investment bankers are hired as educators or road-builders or etc... Kill two birds with one stone.
Those are my votes.

Not sure if anyone is still following this thread, but it is topical to my response:

I don't want any of these Stimulus Packages!

It's like giving a package of "lite" cigarettes and a "how to quit smoking" pamphlet to someone in the hospital who just had a heart attack. We know you really shouldn't smoke, but hey, we need you productive again.

All I have seen is more programs for feeding the same DNA as you would say.

We need Investment by Congress not Stimulus. By this I mean rail over roads, sustainable over throw-away, renewable over oil and research over production. (and for my industry - telecoms, real fiber-based broadband investment, not refinancing of old bonds)

I heard a Senator on NPR state that putting solar on buildings or weatherizing a house made no sense now if it made no sense before, speaking from a ROI perspective with cheap energy. But monetary capital should not be the only thing we are building. The US needs to build Human capital, Political capital and Environmental capital - they are depleted just as much as our monetary capital is today. No one said it would be easy; I don't want to be in the hospital again in my lifetime. And just maybe, if we practice the right hygiene, maybe my kids won't either.

What would have happened if Roosevelt had only passed a Stimulus Package.